Estates -

Professor Evans to join the UNH Law faculty Fall 2017!

Posted on February 27, 2017 by TME in Copyright, diversity, entertainment law, equity, Estates, inclusion, Intellectual Property, law school, UNH

I am thrilled to announce that I will join the tenured faculty of The University of New Hampshire School of Law this fall as a Full Professor.

UNH Law, formerly Franklin Pierce Law Center, is a leader in intellectual property law, social justice, sports law, and innovative practical preparation and is ranked 82nd by US News & World Report. It is also home to the preeminent Franklin Pierce Center for Intellectual Property (FPCIP) and the UNH Sports and Entertainment Law Institute (SELI).

I look forward to serving as an integral part of both FPCIP and SELI, and I will also continue my work in the areas of Trusts & Estates and Inclusion & Equity.

[Read the official press release]

I am excited to announce that my hiring class includes Ryan Vacca. He is the David L. Brennan Professor of Law at The University of Akron School of Law, where he also serves as the Interim Co-Dean and Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law & Technology.

My departure from Widener Law Commonwealth is bittersweet; I have loved my time here! WLC has been a tremendous place to evolve as an educator and scholar in the legal academy while surrounded by wonderful, supportive colleagues and inspired by fantastic students (whom I will miss most of all!). Thank you for the well wishes I’ve already received.

Prof. Evans to teach Wills & Trusts this summer at UNLV Law

Posted on May 4, 2016May 3, 2016 by TME in Estates, law school, law student

I am excited to announce that I accepted an invitation to teach Wills & Trusts at UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law during the summer session.

This course covers intestate succession; testamentary capacity; execution, revocation, and component parts of wills; interpretation of wills; will substitutes; creation and interpretation of inter vivos and testamentary trusts; powers of appointment; professional standards and fiduciary responsibility. I will also lightly touch upon estate and trust administration.

Although this is not a course on document drafting, we will address ethical and practical considerations in drafting wills and trusts. The question we explore for every case is what the attorney could have done, should have done, or should not have done, in order to avoid litigation. Both the course and casebook, Contemporary Trusts and Estates (Susan Gary et al. , 2d. Aspen), approach the subject matter from an experiential, practical point of view to actively engage students in the material as practicing attorneys rather than law students.

Evans places article that explores copyright termination & estate planning with W. Va. Law Review

Posted on May 4, 2016May 3, 2016 by TME in Copyright, Court Decisions, entertainment law, Estates, Intellectual Property, Music, publishing law, Termination, Trusts, Wills

Statutory Heirs Apparent?: Reclaiming Copyright in the Age of Author-Controlled, Author-Benefiting Transfers, 119 W. Va. Law Rev. __ (2016).

This Article explores the intersection and disconnect between copyright law and estates law when a copyright owner dies before having the opportunity to exercise her termination right of an inter vivos copyright transfer. Specifically, I explore the impact of a statutory heir’s copyright transfer termination right on the original author’s testamentary freedom to the extent the decedent’s nonprobate disposition of assets is contrary to the “statutory will” disposition found in the Copyright Act.

Although copyright transfers made by will are not subject to a termination right, no such exception is made for an author’s lifetime transfers into vehicles controlled by the author. Examples of such transfers include those made into a performing artist’s loan-out company or a songwriter’s lifetime transfer of musical composition and sound recording copyrights into a self-settled irrevocable trust or charitable foundation.

The practical effect is that an heir (defined by the Act as a spouse, child or grandchild) who inherits the right to terminate any lifetime copyright transfer (including those just described), may exercise that right and successfully reclaim copyright ownership against the decedent’s intent to transfer copyright ownership at death to someone or some entity other than that statutorily prescribed heir.

I argue the termination right was intended to protect authors from being saddled for the full copyright term with bad deals made early in their careers when they had little, if any, bargaining power. The right was not intended to prevent authors from advantageous lifetime transfers into vehicles controlled by the author for prudent business, tax and estate planning reasons.

Many scholars, practitioners, and copyright transferees in the entertainment business surmised the likely impact of the first reclamation trigger date of January 1, 2013 under §203 of the 1976 Copyright Act on post-1977 transfer terminations. Some also expressed concern with the apparent distinction between, and treatment of, transfers by will and nonprobate transfers. This article focuses on what has actually transpired since that trigger date.

In addition, the article focuses on what might be done going forward to reconcile the probate and nonprobate disposition of copyrights in a way that best honors an author’s testamentary intent given what we now know from cases starting to make their way through the court system.